


frame the halves

by golden_d



Series: Brooke Banner [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, Genderswap, Potential trigger warning: canonical child abuse, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_d/pseuds/golden_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that aren’t in Brooke Banner’s SHIELD file, five things that are, and one thing she’s never told anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	frame the halves

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Regina Spektor's "Call Them Brothers."
> 
> Thanks to 51stcenturyfox for the quickest turn-around time of any beta who ever lived. <3

1\. In high school, Brooke Banner adopts a uniform of jeans and sweatshirts, only trading up to rumpled slacks and button-downs (and, later, neatly pressed slacks and button-downs) after she begins work on her PhD and needs to be professional and presentable and not overlooked. Ironing her blouses and pantsuits becomes a soothing pre-conference ritual. It’s stupid and stereotypical, but she likes ironing. It’s relaxing, hearing the hiss of the iron and feeling the wave of steam rise up from the ironing board. It doesn’t allow room to focus on anything except the task at hand.

Before Brooke ever meditates, she irons.

\--

2\. Brooke isn’t honestly sure whether General Ross hates her more because she “turned his daughter into a lesbian” or because she turns into a giant green...thing. She tries not to think about it too much; thinking about Ross— the general and Betty both—makes her angry. And when she gets angry...

Well. You know how it is. Things go badly.

\--

3\. When SHIELD and Natasha track her down in India, Brooke thinks they’re trying to arrest her. After all, sometimes, after the—after _She_ is gone, Brooke wakes up and isn’t alone. Sometimes there are men leering at her naked form, and then She comes back and Brooke supposes that if they ever catch her, she’ll be tried for murder someday.

So finding out that they want her to be on a team—well, it’s fucking hilarious, is what it is. Times must be desperate indeed for anyone to come looking to her (and Her) to be a hero.

\--

4\. She and Natasha don’t really talk, on the long flight from India to the helicarrier, but Brooke spends a lot of time watching her. She figures Natasha knows it and is just choosing to ignore her, which is...just as well, really; Brooke’s never really known how to deal with people like her. In addition to being some kind of superspy secret agent, Natasha is everything Brooke’s never been: beautiful and confident and supremely _in control_ —of her emotions, of her movements, and (she suspects) of how people perceive her.

Brooke is deeply, deeply resentful.

\--

5\. The thing is, Brooke can, sometimes, control Her. It’s just that if she _admits_ that she has control of Her, it means accepting that they’re the same person, that they’re not two distinct individuals inhabiting the same (well, mostly the same) body. Brooke tries to stay away from crises of identity when at all possible, but this time it’s...not really all that possible, not if she wants to do any good.

“Dr. Banner,” Captain America says to her, formal and polite but not deferential in the slightest. “I think now might be a good time for you to get angry.”

Brooke laughs and laughs and roars in fury.

\--

5\. Evidently she— _She_ —beat up a Norse god at some point. Brooke has to admit that’s pretty good bragging rights.

\--

4\. When they finally arrive on the helicarrier, it’s the first time Brooke’s been back on American soil (so to speak) in years. Clearly being in the United States is bad luck, since it’s not long before she’s Her and trying to destroy everything in Her path. And it’s a little hazy, but looking back, Brooke’s pretty sure that She jumped a fighter plane.

\--

3\. Brooke hasn’t gotten her period since the first time she turned into the—into _Her_.

That is to say, she is amenorrheic. Does not menstruate. Does not ovulate. Is very likely infertile.

It’s not that she mourns the loss, not really; it was one less thing to worry about when she was on the run. But she’s angry that it was taken from her—that, unwittingly, she took it from herself.

\--

2\. Her hero, growing up, is Captain America. The comic books are a little hokey and outdated, but she loves him. He never gets hurt, and if he does, he gets right back up and keeps fighting. He always wins. 

Brooke desperately wants to be like him.

\--

1\. Brooke is a gymnast as a kid, a vaulter, until puberty and hips wreak havoc with her balance. When gymnastics is no longer an option, she joins the swim team, not because she’s especially good, but because she hopes that activities requiring bare arms and legs will keep her dad from leaving bruises in places where other people can see.

It works for a little while. It works until the first black eye and busted lip, until the fingertip bruises on her arm, and then she quits the swim team, throws herself into science and sweatshirts, and never looks back. Science doesn’t ask her uncomfortable questions or stare at her arms.

\--

0\. Brooke still hates to wear short sleeves.


End file.
